you didnt hate it, it was sweet and cute for him to be so in love with you. he was your golden retriever and he liked to follow you around and listen to everything you said

"god youre so whipped" rhonda said to the boy one day as you wrote in the journal that you got from someone.

"i am not" wally said and you hoped down from the counter

"wally" you called and his head turned to you

"yeah?" he asked

"come with me" you said and he nodded as he turned away from charley and the others and walked to you

"WHIPPED" charley and maddie yelled out making him flip them off as you laughed and shook your head with a smile.

"dont laugh" he said and you laughed more

"its okay, its cute" you told him and he smiled as his hand reached down for yours. you held his hand close to you with a smile as you walked together

"what did you need me for?" he asked

"just needed you for something. come here" you bossed

"coming" he said

"sit right there" you told him and he sat down.

"whats happening?" he asked

"just wanted to see how well you listened to me" you laughed and he whined as you sighed. you leaned down and kissed him. soon the door opened and maddie walked in with charley, clothes flooded with them

"clean that up" you stated and they nodded as they began to clean it up and you smiled.

wally smiled too and he noticed someting. even if you were bossy, it was okay because you cared about people and what they did. you didn't boss them around for your own pleasure.

you bossed them around because you wanted to keep them safe and make sure that nothing bad would happen. you wanted to keep them safe and sound from the world.

you were just the boss.

he wanted to talk to you but he couldn't. the dead couldn't communicate with the living and he hated it. he just wanted to tell you that he thought you were pretty.

so how did you end up here? he didn't expect to see you here, he was here everyday and he knew you weren't dead. he knew you would never show up and yet there you were.

you didnt know how , i mean you knew how, you got ran over in the fucking parking lot. stupid ex girlfriend and her anger issues won that round, or 5 rounds as she ran you over five times . so there you sat between charley and wally

"so we have someone new, would you like to introduce yourself?" mr.martin asked

"um hi, my names y/n" you introduced

"hi y/n" they all said and wally smiled widely at you

"so how did you die?" rhonda asked you

"crazy ex girlfriend, wanted me dead, ran me over 5 times in the parking lot" you told them

"jesus" charley said and you nodded.

"i mean i dont know why she did it and I hate that but I also know that shes insane and would do anything to make sure that I never forgot her" you said

"i wouldnt want you to forget me" wally said under his breathe, thinking no one heard him but you did. you had heard him

"im sorry, what?" you said and he lifted his head

"oh uh, what- sorry- what-" he kept cutting himself off making you laugh and shake your head

"this is wally, hes been in love with you for about 5 months now" rhonda introduced

"rhonda" he inhaled

"wally , like wally clark. total legend, and let me guess. you're rhonda and you're charley" you asked

"you know about us?" charley said

"the school is a shitfest, at least someone should know about the horrible history and not just one jock, sorry wally, you are pretty enough to pay attention to" you said boldly and he blushed

"oh thanks, youre- youre pretty too" he said and you smiled at him as he smiled back.

"alright well, welcome y/n, we're so sorry that happened to you" mr.martin said

"yeah me too" you said and you felt the mood darken

"im going to go take a walk, think maybe" you said and you got up making wally stand up too

"what are you doing?" you asked

"i was just-, oh ya know, i was going to come with you" he said and you nodded.

"you want to help me feel better about this whole thing" you exclaimed

"yes yes that exactly, i want to help" he said

"then lets go" you said and he jumped up before he followed after you

and he would help

There’s hope that you’ll make it out of this alive, after all. 

While you and Finnick were discovering you were soulmates, the Capitol anthem was playing its last few notes, when they began to shut off the cameras. And further, the lights that lit up the stage, in a final attempt to cut you off from the outside world, and the audience that sat feet away.

They were entirely too late.

It was pitch black on the stage, causing confusion and minor chaos as all twenty-four of you struggled to make it to the elevators. You lost your district partner in the mess, you think he let go of your hand on purpose to try and make it out of the crowd faster. Which you would be mad about, if it weren’t for Finnick holding onto you tightly, guiding both you and Mags to the elevator, where Johanna managed to slip in just before the doors shut. 

Inside, Finnick didn’t waste any time, grabbing your shoulders to tell you that he’d find you inside of the arena. If he didn’t, then you’d need to find him. There was a bigger alliance, and you’d be safer if you joined it. He didn’t have time to tell you who exactly was in it, before the elevator doors opened and he left with Mags.

You’ve been thinking about it since.

Finnick cares that you’re his soulmate, enough to the point where he wants to protect you inside of the arena. It wouldn’t be such a heinous idea, if it weren’t for the fact that you thought that Finnick was already taken, especially with that poem he did during his interview. Unless, it was meant for his soulmate, who he knew was watching at that moment, but unaware that it was him.

As for a bigger alliance, you have no clue what that means. You spent all three training days trying to figure out who was going to ally with who. The only alliance you managed to figure out was the most obvious one: the careers. As for everyone else, they’re some gigantic mystery.

If you had to guess now, you’d say that Johanna, Blight, Finnick and Mags are together. Which is a regular sized alliance, it’s not big by any means. You’re not entirely sure who else would be inclined to join something like that. Johanna and Finnick are intense people to be around, inside of an arena, it’s got to be worse.

At that rate, you’d say Katniss and Peeta, but they were entirely uninterested in Finnick and Johanna the whole week. You can’t see them all deciding to survive together in the arena. Unless, that’s what they want you to think, because they’re all similar in some way.

Still, that’s not necessarily a bigger alliance. That still falls under the career category, which means there are more people. You couldn’t even guess who they are, if you wanted to.

It doesn’t matter, you’ll be finding out in a few minutes anyway.

You fix the wetsuit on your body, straightening it to feel more comfortable. When you’re done, you pull your hair out of your face, knowing that it’ll give you a clearer sight above. You’re really hoping that it’s not going to be anything too extreme. You don’t want the desert, but you don’t want a frozen tundra, either. And you sure as hell don’t want the same nightmare arena that Haymitch lived through.

“It’s time.” Your stylist tells you.

You turn towards the cylinder that’ll raise you to the surface, stepping onto the metal plate. You take a few deep breaths to calm the anxiety that’s beginning to rise in your stomach. You did this one, which means that you’ll be able to do it again. You can do this. 

The glass door slowly slides shut, sealing you inside of the tube. You turn away from your stylist to face the wall, and then close your eyes when you begin to get lifted.

A warm breeze washes over your skin, telling you to open your eyes to see where they’ve placed you this year. When you do, you’re met with a white light, blinding you instantly. You spend several vital seconds blinking away the sun.

“Ladies and gentlemen, let the Seventy-Fifth Hunger Games begin!” 

A tight pain strikes your chest when you realize what you’re in the middle of. You slap both of your hands over your mouth, taking half a step backward, when you realize that you can’t go any further without accidentally killing yourself. You’re completely surrounded by beautiful blue water, before it would be grey.

You look over your shoulder, and you let out a breath of relief when you see a beach, and beyond that, a dense forest. No, not a forest. It’s much too lush and crowded to be just that, and the trees are too tall to compare to anything from home. The higher the branch, the bigger the leaves. That’s a jungle. A vibrant and healthy green jungle.

You turn back to face the golden cornucopia, and the island it sits on. From what you can tell, there’s twelve spokes coming out of the island, which means two tributes toa  wedge. All you do is glance to your right, and you’re met with the girl from Six, who’s hugging herself right now, bony hands pulling her shoulders inward.

What are the chances she’s a part of the alliance? Does she know that you joined last night? No, how could she? There was no way to communicate after the interviews. If she’s not, will she pull herself together long enough to come and attack you as soon as the gong sounds? If it came down to it, you’d be able to kill her, considering she’s barely on her feet.

You angle yourself away from her and toward the spoke, not willing to even take the chance that she’s on your side. 

You can’t imagine how Finnick must be feeling at this moment. He’s got to be ecstatic over the fact that he’s got the advantage this year. He’ll have no issue cutting through the waves. While you’re going to struggle to get to the spoke without drowning.

Fortunately, you know how to swim, you’re just rusty. It’ll all come back to you once you’re in the water, you just need to have a little hope. Although, the more you stare into the blue, you’re not sure if you can even bring yourself to get inside. Who knows how deep it goes beneath you?

The gong sounds, and you don’t move from the metal plate because of the paralyzing fear that’s telling you the water is too dangerous to get in. You watch as Six girl jumps into the water without hesitating, splashing around in the water until she gains momentum, heading to the spoke on her side.

When you look up, you’re met with the sight of a few other victors who also don’t move from their plates. 

Well, if Six girl hasn’t died yet, that means you won’t either. You suck in a deep breath of air before you dive into the water. You’re pleasantly surprised that the water’s warm, but it’s salty. The moment it hits your eyes, you can’t see straight anymore, and you rely of blind faith to get you to the rocks.

You know you’re pointed in the right direction, so you do your best with swimming that way. You know you’ve got to look ridiculous, but there’s got to be other victors that are embarrassing themselves more. You’re sure there’s a good number of them that don’t even know how to. You’re one of the lucky few that got taught in Five when you were young.

It feels like you’re in the water forever, until your hand hits the rock. You pull yourself out of the water, wiping at your eyes to get the saltiness away. You cough out the taste, face twisted at how gross it is. 

You get to your feet, eyes searching the open cornucopia mouth. All you can see is Katniss, a bow in her hand, digging through a pile of golden weapons. There’s got to be a knife in that pile with your name on it. That would be a good start to the Games, if you had something to defend yourself with.

As if Katniss is reading your thoughts as they come through, her head jerks up. An arrow is on her bow in the time it takes you to blink. You let out a panicked noise, covering your head as you drop to the rock to avoid being pierced. You can hear the whistle of the arrow flying over you.

“Fuck.” You murmur, daring to look up to see if she’s got another arrow for you.

She’s gone, though. And so is the theory that she’s part of the alliance that Finnick was talking about. What are the chances that Finnick was bluffing to you about that alliance to make you feel better about joining him? Did he really think you had anyone else to join?

Your chances at getting that knife are gone, the careers will be at that cornucopia in a matter of seconds, now. You get off your stomach and book it down the rocks, before careful not to trip on the way to the beach. You need to find Finnick. You’re completely weaponless, and there’s safety in numbers, usually.

Your shoe sinks into the sand, you stumble for a few steps before you catch your footing. Everything in you is screaming to run into the jungle, because you know that you’ll be hidden from the victors that specialize in long-range weapons. If you stay here, it’ll be easier to pick you out to kill.

You don’t move though, hesitating like you did on the metal plate, watching and waiting. You’re not even sure what for. You jerk away from the spoke when you see the careers picking through the weapons on the ground, but you don’t move from where your feet are planted in the sand.

That’s when you see them, three victors running into the jungle, a fourth one with grey hair being carried. The infamous trident that got him his win in his hand. 

You start running down the beach, arms pumping at your sides as you take short and quick breaths. You need to catch up to them before they get lost in the jungle. You need to be with Finnick if you plan on making it out of this alive.

You cross five spokes in the matter of two minutes, which you're sure will be some record. You swing yourself around the same tree that you saw them pass by, putting you on the right track. The adrenaline that you had used up until this point is dissipating the further you run up the hill, sucking all of the energy from your body.

It’s too hot to be going at this rate, it would be smarter to pace yourself. Especially with how badly you’re sweating, you don’t even know where the nearest fresh water source is—and that’s assuming the arena has one. 

The good news is that the path that Finnick is taking becomes clearer the further you go. The vegetation is harshly cut in odd ways, which means they must be swinging at it to make it easier to get through. If they’re traveling this quickly, that means you have to, too.

You’re not sure how long you’re running for, or why you’re still so far behind that you can’t even see them a little. It gets bad enough to the point that you begin to doubt that you’re even following the right path. What are the chances that someone else picked up a trident and you’re ignorantly following them?

You swear you saw Mags—

A sharp pain slices through your cheekbone, your head whips to the left, following the momentum of the weapon. You twist, tripping over your ankles as you fall to your knees, one hand cupping the fresh wound, and the other catches you from falling any further down the hill.

“Stop!” A familiar voice shouts, “Katniss—don’t!”

“Why?”

You’ve done it this time. Katniss already wants to kill you, and you’ve just managed to chase her a whole mile into the jungle without even knowing. What are the chances you can explain this and get away with it?

You turn to see who’s with her, and you’re relieved to see that you’ve been following the right people, after all. Finnick’s coming down the hill, curls bouncing with every step. “It’s just (Y/n), she’s our ally.”

“Ally?” Katniss echoes, she doesn’t look very happy.

“Yes.” Finnick doesn’t seem affected by her tone. 

He stops in front of you, offering his hand. There’s a small smile on his face, pleased that you managed to find him. You take it, allowing him to pull you to your feet. He gently moves your hand away from your cheek so he can get a look at it for himself, thumb rubbing underneath it.

“It’s not deep, she grazed you.” He tells you.

“Another couple inches and I’d be dead.” You murmur.

“That’s what you get for trampling through the jungle.” He laughs, “You’re not very discreet.”

“You’re lucky I caught sight of you, at all.”

The two of you wander up the hill, where you find Katniss, Peeta and Mags. Your theory about them being allies wasn’t so far off, it looks like. If it keeps going like this, you’re sure Johanna and Blight will join, and then you’ll be at seven. The numbers will probably stop there, you can imagine.

“Well, you two are close.” Katniss says bitterly, “Didn’t even know you two knew each other.”

“Well, when you’re soulmates, it’s almost like your whole world view changes.” You say.

Katniss nods slightly, “I’m going to climb a tree, get a better view on the cornucopia.”

“We’ll be down here.” Peeta says.

You take a seat next to Mags in the shade, trying to get your breathing back on track after running for so long in this heat. For a minute, you were sure that you were going to pass out.

While other victors might’ve trained for this day, you didn’t bother. 

“How—?” Finnick manages to get out, before the tinkling noise of a sponsor gift silences him. 

The four of you look into the air, curious on where it’s coming from, and who it must be for this early on. Normally, when you’re mentoring, you try to hold onto the sponsors until the most important moments. Every penny counts. However, you guess that the gifts are so cheap right now that it won’t even make a difference.

The medium-sized container lands right in front of you. You share a look with Finnick, unsure about opening it. 

“It can’t hurt.” He says.

You reach forward, moving the parachute out of the way before you pop open the lid. In the middle of the container sits a small slip of paper, with the word ‘congrats’ written on it. There’s a knife beneath it, beautifully carved with a sharp and curved blade. This is meant for you, there’s no question about it.

You begin to inspect it in your hand, when the sound of tinkling begins again.

“What’s happening?” Peeta asks.

“Congratulations gifts.” Finnick says, he catches this one in his hands. When he opens the lid, he lets out a laugh, “Water.”

You’re on your feet in an instant to see for yourself. There’s five bottles inside of the container, one for each of you. You take one out, and laugh for yourself, because they’re cold. You press the bottle to your forehead for a minute, before opening it and taking a few sips.

Peeta gets to his feet, coming over to grab one for himself. You move around Mags, grabbing Finnick’s shoulder to make him lean in your direction. You cup your hands to block what you’re saying from the Capitol, “We’re going to play this up, aren’t we?”

Mickey thought his hair was a struggle when he grew it out. He no longer could use his beloved 2-n-1 that you two playfully bickered about all the time, it kept getting in his face and tickling his forehead. Yet he put up with it for you, seeing your face light up when he stepped out of the shower with the wet curls stuck to his face and how you’d laugh when it tickled your nose when he hovered over you. 

—

“Can I braid it?” you asked one night while he had his head in your lap, his favorite movie on the tv in front of you. Mickey smiled and fanned out his hair over your thighs. 

“Sure, cariño,” he hummed, his attention still on the tv. 

You could do this for hours, running your hands through his soft hair and braiding small sections before undoing it just to do it all over again. Sometimes Mickey would fall asleep to the feeling of your fingernails gently scraping his scalp, one of the few times he felt totally and completely relaxed. 

—

Mickey hated to admit he liked the attention to his hair, made his head all nice and fuzzy when you touched it. 

“Baby,” he sang as he walked out of the bathroom, towel hanging low on his hips. 

“Hmm?” you looked up from your phone, breaking out into a smile as he sheepishly looked at you from the foot of the bed. 

He pressed the back of the brush to his nose and looked at you with big eyes, “Will you brush my hair?”  

Giggling, you sat up straight and pulled him into your lap, ignoring how wet your shirt was getting. He sat up straight, goosebumps covering his tan skin as you drag the brush through his damp hair. “You used the good stuff,” you remarked happily as you smelled the product in his hair, leaning forward to kiss his bare shoulder. 

“Shampoo…and conditioner.” He was so proud of himself. 

— 

One of your favorite parts of his longer hair was in the middle of the night when his head was buried between your thighs. “Mickey, please,” you whined, your hips rising off the bed. He used his hands to pull them back down, his fingertips leaving tiny bruises which you had hoped for. 

“I’m taking my time,” he hummed against your core, the vibrations making you cry out. Your fingers curled and flexed at your sides as he ate you out like it was his last meal, tongue flicking relentlessly on your folds but purposely missing the spot you needed him the most. “You’re so pretty when you’re desperate and needy for me, cariño,” he cooed, lifting his head and pushing back his hair. Eyes on you as he went back down. 

With another small desperate whine, you tangled your hand in his hair and gave it a rough tug. “Mickey, please, please. Make me cum,” you begged. He let out a pleasure-filled groan as your grip on his hair tightened. He let your hand guide him upward, tugging hard as his lips finally covered your throbbing clit. 

—

Having his hair pulled was something he didn’t know he liked, but he craved it. It was the perfect sensation to push him over the edge. His warm body pressed against yours as his hips pistoned, mumbling noncoherent things into your neck. “W-what?” you panted, nails deep into his back. 

“Pull my hair—’m so close,” he moaned pathetically into your ear. You bit down on his shoulder and tangled your fingers in his hair, pulling hard enough that he threw his head back and spilled inside you. 

— 

When his leave came to an end, you looked at him longingly when he came home from the barbershop. His curls were gone but he left just a little on the top for you to play with, “Do I still look ok?” he asked as he wrapped you in his arms.